I found this consultation on the Bristol City Council website. If you're from Bristol then I would really suggest filling it out with your views as I already have done. But what struck me about a lot of this survey was that it was inherently negative about alcohol. I'm not necessarily suggesting all the questions should have asked people to praise alcohol to high heaven but I believe this to be a poor survey worded in such a way that simple positive answers are being sought from complex questions. Read on for some of the questions and what I feel about them.

Q2 Alcohol taxes should increase with the strength of the content.

I don't understand where strength of alcohol has to do with anything here. The people binge drinking are doing so on a wide array of drinks, and those that are "under age" and drinking are drinking cider and lager, hardly the strongest substances around.

Q3 Drink companies should be banned from sponsoring sports and music events.

Q4 Alcohol advertising on TV and in cinemas should be banned

These two questions just pretty much disgust me. As with advertising to young children for sweets or junk food I don't understand why it is not the responsibility of the individual (or parents in the case of children) to moderate what they buy. We already go pretty damn far with banning advertising for certain products and I would hate to see it go further

Q6 Raise the age at which alcohol can be drunk (currently 5 years).

I'm expecting a lot of reactionary answers in agreement to this because of the lack of context, perhaps people outraged at the idea kids could be wondering our streets aged 6 getting drunk and beating up old ladies. The fact is that a little bit of alcohol doesn't hurt anyone, let alone supervised and moderated children.

Q7 Raise the age at which alcohol can be bought (currently 18 years)

And in doing so send vast swathes of the economy in our cities in to ruin. Seriously, all that you would do with this is ensure that trade reliant on students would dry up and that you criminalise more people for doing something that in the way they do it isn't a problem for society. Someone put an ACTUAL case for raising the age other than "it'll stop youngsters drinking", a patently false analysis, and I might listen to bullshit like this properly.

Q8 Families should introduce ideas about responsible social drinking to children at a young age.

You heard the man, you're not raising your child right. Of course I agree with this, but what the hell is a council or government going to do to legislate for it? Nothing, I hope, though to be honest I wouldn't put anything past Jacqui Smith right now.

Q13 Schools should do more to teach a healthy approach to alcohol.

Perhaps five hours a week of "don't do alcohol/sex/smoking until you reach the arbitary age limit we impose on you" would be a nice side order to that of five hours of culture? For the record I think schools do more than enough to educate kids about drink and drugs.

Q15 Alcohol is an age-limited product and should be on display at the back of retail outlets not at the front. It will then be away from the route that young people take through a supermarket. This applies even if the alcohol is on special offer.

Yes, yes! Make alcohol more taboo so that those under-age drinkers have less reason to want to try it. Oh..uh, wait...I think I got that wrong somewhere, let me get back to you...

Q16 All off-licences, shops and supermarkets should sell half bottles of wine for people who want to cut down their drinking.

Q17 Off-licences (including supermarkets) should stock lower alcohol wines (8 or 9% Alcohol By Volume (ABV)) as some only sell stronger wines.

Why on earth should we start forcing businesses to adopt practices that they obviously don't find profitable? Are we going to subsidise businesses because of this legislative measure to help them lose money? We cannot and have not been able to stem heavy drinking by offering lesser versions of things. A half pint is available everywhere, mostly because there is no loss involved in offering it, yet how many of those are bought compared to pints? If you started even forcing people to buy 30cl bottles of wine rather than 75cl all that would happen is people would buy more bottles of wine. I'd love to see the spin in the press then as sales of bottles of wine booms.

Q18 Large supermarkets and larger off-licences should be asked to maintain a separate display within the drinks section, where drinks with lower % ABV are available.

People in supermarkets want things in a logical array, there have been many people that put a lot of thought in to maximising the effect of layouts. People browse in very specific patterns, and taking all of the lower volume stock out of those patterns isn't necessarily going to do anything.

Q19 Supermarkets and off-licences should display information about alcohol units and recommended limits.

Hooray, something I actually agree with!

Q23 Pubs and clubs should offer small glasses of wine in case people want a smaller glass (some places only offer large glasses).

The Lib Dem motion so willingly attacked by idiots. I like this idea as it essentially mimics the half pint situation, it doesn't impact significantly on business and it allows people to drink the amount they want to pay for.

Q24 Special offers and discounts on alcohol in pubs (e.g. Happy Hours and '2 for 1') should be banned.

Categorically no. I have worked in the licensed trade realm and I can tell you for a fact that if you cut out the Happy Hours and the 2 for 1 offers then all that you do is ensure that you kill your regular trade as your customers buy alcohol cheaply from supermarkets rather than drink in your establishment. If the government or anyone thinks they are stopping heavy drinking by reducing these offers they are in fantasy land.

One hour of cheaper drinking early in the night keeps people in your bar, where later they buy drinks at a more regular price. If they don't come for the Happy hour they spend the same amount of money or less on more booze which they drink more quickly in their homes, and then come out when they think they can afford the rest of the night. As for 2 for 1's, people can only drink so much. Whether they buy 1 bottle or 16. While I believe the onus should be more on security for dealing with people that appear to be heading down the route of necking all of their alcohol and thus making themselves a hazard for themselves and those around them, I don't think we should stop a process that generally just makes people turn up to the bar earlier.

Q25 Pubs should promote inexpensive, non-alcoholic drinks.

Again, why tell them how to run their business?

Q26 People who sell or serve alcohol should hold a professional qualification.

I can imagine the hard sections on that test would be "how to draw a shamrock on a Guinness" and "What to do when the customer has short changed you like a thieving bastard and walked away with his drinks."

Q27 Businesses that sell alcohol to people who are already drunk should be prosecuted.

Yes they should, given that it is THE LAW that you should not sell alcohol to people already too drunk. How about simply enforcing the laws you've already got rather than adding new ones to the mix?

Q28 The maximum blood alcohol level for drinking and driving should be lowered.

The drink driving limit is where it is for a reason, because up to that level alcohol has no effect on a persons ability to drive competently. Why lower it? Either ban drink driving at all because you're afraid people can't moderate their own drinking, or leave it at the level at which scientifically it is safe to have drunk to and drive. Don't muddy the waters for some political point scoring!

Q29 The sale of trendy drinks that appeal to young people (e.g. alcopops) should be banned.

Third time, or is it the fourth? I lose count since this point comes up so bloody often...don't tell the industry what products they can and can't make with such lousy reasoning!

Q30 Opening hours restrictions should be re-introduced.

Nope.

Q31 It should be illegal to drink in the street.

Nope.

Q32 Licences should be limited and there should be fewer pubs and clubs.

Nope.

So there we have it, while roughly half a dozen questions are sensible most of them ask people whether or not they agree with utter tripe. Hopefully people will think a little more about the potential outcomes of saying businesses should not sell alcopops before agreeing with the theoretical and more philosophical style the questions appear to be residing.